Rock Scars
by KT the Shimmer Skank
Summary: We were rock stars. On tour with Craig, angsty Ashley drabble.


**Rock Scars**

**--by KT the Shimmer Skank**

Notes: As I always disclaim before my fics, I haven't seen past the seventh season. Also, I don't consider minis canon. I don't know what the hell the writers want to imply Craig and Ashley's future is, but _this_ is what I envision their course to have been after they left for the European tour. Rated T for drug and alcohol references, violence, and strong language. Reviews are _very_ much appreciated.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The turntables in my head never stop spinning. I am perpetually mixing and matching the songs that play as the world moves by me. My life has a soundtrack. Whatever I might feel in any moment, it always seems better with a song.

We were like rock stars. Our love was ugly when it was ugly because I knew the right songs to play. Our love was beautiful when it was beautiful because I knew the right songs to play. And back then, back when I fell in love with him, I was listening to a lot of Death Cab. So somehow, while he broke me, I was able to find it beautiful. Tragic and gorgeous like a Death Cab song. That's how I always thought of me and Craig.

Through the angst-colored glass with which I watched the world, we were rock stars. Our love was rock and roll. No matter how fucked up things got, no matter how much he hurt me, no matter how much he exhausted my heart, once we started playing together, it turned into poetry. We were rock stars.

Of course I ran to his arms when he asked me to tour. Of course I longed to stroke the ivories in his shadow. If we played together again, we would be in love again. Music, love, Craig. I hardly knew the difference any more. Everything else for me had failed.

It played out like an album. From the first powerhouse opener, to the track four thrash rager, to the sultry hazy closer. We were rock stars.

Me and Craig, making out in front of the Trevi Fountain, dancing in love and in glory and high on the rush of sold-out shows. Strolls through rainy London, guitar strings and amplifiers, sex in hotel rooms. Mix CDs on the tour bus, crepes in French cafes, sweaty European girls outside the stage door screaming Craig's name. Sound checks and autographs, wild parties until the sun rose, days and days without sleep. Jealousy and tension against the backdrop of blue Swiss mountains, wine and gin and cigarettes on my room service bill.

Cold sideways glances from my piano as I watch him sing, watched him play his guitar. Watched him play his fucking games. Watched him play with me. Watched him watch the girls in the front row. Watched him twitch and rub his nose. Watched him slip away from me. Watched him fuck me over while the crowd just kept screaming and screaming.

We were rock stars.

Me and Craig, fighting in the goddamn middle of the street in Germany while tourists and paparazzi flashed their cameras, swerving in fury and burned out on the rush of sold-out shows. Sound checks and autographs, drugs and booze, make-up sex in hotel rooms. Coke at parties, coke backstage, coke on the tour bus. All night song-writing binges as we flew along the Autobahn, parties until the sun rose and went back down again. Days and days without knowing what day it was, against the backdrop of nameless blurry European cities. Arguments and fists, guitar strings and amplifiers, bandages and cover-ups. Screaming at each other and performing together, bloody noses and bruised arms. Wine and gin and cigarettes on my room service bill. Sweaty European girls outside the stage door screaming Craig's name.

Cold sideways glances as I watched him pretend like none of this was happening. Watched him pretend like he never hit me. Watched him fidget and twitch and run off stage in between sets for another bump. Watched him watch me, watched him dare me to speak. Watched him fuck me over while the crowd just kept screaming and screaming.

Watched him shine like a star under the lights while my heart kept breaking and breaking. Bruises and razors and mirrors and ashes and lights and speakers and tears.

We. Were. Rock. Stars.

At the airport bar, they serve really good red wine, and that's good, because I'm going to need a lot of it before I get on the plane back to Toronto. I'm a drunk, and he's a cokehead, and this love is fucked, and this tour is so over, and I'm scrolling frantically through my iPod because I know I must have a song about this somewhere.

I haven't slept in days. My fingernail polish is chipping and my eyes are tired. I can't remember if this is Rome or Milan. There's a business man across the bar who watches me toss back merlot, and I know he's staring at my shiny black eye. I glare at him, daring him to say anything. He pretends he had never looked, and averts his eyes to the drink in front of him.

That's right. He won't say anything to me, wouldn't dare utter a word to this broken dirty drunk girl at the airport bar. I'm a rock star.


End file.
